** spoiler alert ** How I loved this book. The writing is Austenian crisp, both light and loaded with irony. The spectacular opening chapter is lesson in all that can be done with free indirect discourse, minus any of the heaviness the word "lesson" implies. Like his insider-trader protagonist, Dee takes a lot of risks, and they pay off. The characters aren't likable, at least not consistently, yet I wanted to spend time with them, perhaps because Dee made the Moreys so believable and so fascinating.

Much has been made of Dee's refusal to pass judgment on these amoral people. Vice isn't punished here; virtue isn't rewarded, at least not in material terms. This isn't a morality tale, yet it manages to be a deeply moral book, which is part of THE PRIVILEGES brilliance. The Moreys have everything their hearts desire, all the power and glamor we all wish for in our most superficial moments. But would you want your children to turn out as their children do? Would you really trade your life for theirs? This Vanity Fair reveals itself as empty precisely because Dee lets the Moreys keep their version of "everything," and that "everything" is so obviously bankrupt in the ethical and spiritual sense, so tragically unfulfilling.